


I am not myself

by nbmontclair



Series: I don't know my name [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Autism, Autistic Character, Gen, Neurodiversity, Poetry, Reflection, Short Story, Stream of Consciousness, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-26 19:27:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30110856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nbmontclair/pseuds/nbmontclair
Summary: The person I wish I was is not the person I am.
Series: I don't know my name [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2215725
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	I am not myself

I want to be me and be proud of them, but I don’t know who that is. I know what I am not, but I cannot identify myself. Some part of me accepts the confusion as who I am, but not the rest of me. I cannot stand confusion and it frustrates me on bad days. 

I didn’t used to think of myself like this. I didn’t have any idea I could be anything other than what role I was assigned at birth and forced into my entire life. The way my mind works isolated me from my cisgender peers and made me the weird kid. I embraced that identity but still lived within my assigned role. I didn’t know what I could be. I went down the internet rabbit hole and found more questions than answers. Who am I suddenly became a more difficult question. I never fit in the binary, then where did I belong? If I wasn’t male or female, what am I? 

I am just me, both the question and the answer. 

While my mind runs in circles trying to accept the gender confusion as me, my body isn’t me. This chest isn’t mine. These clothes cannot make the reflection in the mirror resemble the body I construct in my mind. It will be though. Perhaps not now, but I will make my body mine. Until then, my reflection in every mirror invokes stress and anxiety that I can’t cure.

* * *

I like gender neutral pronouns, but I struggle so much with using them for me in my mind. When that happens, I hurt inside because if I can’t even get my own pronouns right, then I must not be trans. But then if I’m not trans, I’m not anything. I’ll keep trying though, until I get it right.

There’s this name people call me because it was given to me, but it allows them to make assumptions about me that I don’t like. It’s not that I don’t like this name, I do. I just want people to hear my name and not be able to infer anything. 

There’s this name I keep to myself. I don’t know if it’s mine yet. I can’t tell if it’s mine. I don’t know what it sounds like, coming from someone’s lips who’s calling to me. I like how it sounds in my mind, but the person in my head is not me. Some people know it, but it’s not enough. I don’t know if it’s right, but I’m terrified that if I give the world this name and it sounds wrong, I won’t be able to take it back. I’m terrified that if I give the world this name, they’ll throw it back and call me by that other name.

* * *

One day, the world will say my name, and I will smile because it is mine. 

One day, I will look in the mirror and be happy because my body is mine.

One day, the gender chaos in my mind will fill me with pride because the chaos is me.

One day, I will be myself.


End file.
